


No One's Gonna Love You

by noblydonedonnanoble



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-15
Updated: 2012-05-15
Packaged: 2017-11-05 10:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/noblydonedonnanoble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I didn’t even think you’d still be awake. I was just going to leave a sleepy message to make you smile."</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One's Gonna Love You

                  “Hey, you.”

                  I smile immediately at the sound of her voice. “Evening. Sorry it’s kinda late…”

                  Her laugh is easy, and when it hits me a shiver goes down my spine. “David, it’s 2:30 in the morning. That’s a little more than ‘kinda late’.”

                  “I didn’t even think you’d still be awake. I was just going to leave a sleepy message to make you smile.” I pause, staring at the tiles on my wall. “Why are you still awake?”

                  “Just… just thinking.”

                  Thinking. And I’m thinking. And most likely, we’re thinking about the same thing.

                  “Where are you right now?” she asks me.

                  “Bathroom.”

                  She chuckles. “The bathroom—such a great place for a late-night phone call. I’m sitting in my car.”

                  I stare at my reflection in the mirror, at my wild hair, the beginnings of a beard and the slight bags under my eyes. I wonder what she’d say if she saw me. She’d probably ask me immediately what was wrong. Nobody else seems to be aware, but she would notice right away. She always notices.

                  Though it’s because she’s not around to notice that I’m like this in the first place.

                  I sit down on my floor and lean against the wall. “You expected me to call?”

                  “I kind of just wanted to get out of bed and stop staring at the ceiling. But I guess subconsciously, yeah, I expected you to call.”

                  “I think I want to go on a drive,” I say, very quietly. I don’t know why I so suddenly lower my voice. If anything, it might be that I don’t know if I want her to hear me.

                  “Sounds fun.”

                  I leave the house without even bothering to put shoes on. As I start the car and pull out of my garage, she talks to me about her day. She tells me about her most recent insane attempt to cook dinner, and that now she _swears_ it was the last time.

                  “I love the streets this late at night,” I murmur. “I feel so special, so secretive.”

                  “You don’t need to drive around at 3 in the morning to be secretive. Just go into your bathroom and call me.”

                  “Where are you?” I ask.

                  “Driving.”

                  We sit in silence for a while, and I listen as she turns on the radio and starts singing along.

                  “What station?”

                  She tells me, and when I find it I start to sing along with her. As soon as I do, she stops and just listens.

                  “I love your voice.” She whispers after a while.

                  “Where are you?”

                  “I’m almost there.”

                  “Me too.”

                  I keep singing, and eventually she joins me.

                  We pull in and park almost simultaneously, a few spots apart.

                  “I see you.” She tells me.

                  “That’s creepy.”

                  “Do you have a blanket?”

                  “Yeah.”

                  She’s halfway there by the time I’ve rummaged around the back and found my blanket. When I reach her, she’s sitting in the grass and just… watching me, eyes shining and a smile on her face. As I toss her the blanket, she says, “Hey, you.”

                  We lie down on the blanket, gazing at the stars. She breathes in a sigh and takes my hand.

                  “I miss you,” she whispers. Fingers still clasped between mine, she reaches up and strokes my cheek, taking in the scratchy stubble. “You miss me too.”

                  “Am I really so transparent?” I whisper.

                  “To me? Always.”

                  I pull her hand to my lips and kiss it gently. “Of course I miss you. I miss you right now and you’re lying right next to me.”

                  “Talk to me, David.”

                  I talk about inconsequential things—the funny thing that happened last time I went shopping, the television I’ve been watching lately, how I’ve been thinking of buying a new car. She listens to me with rapt attention, sometimes watching me and sometimes glancing at the street and sometimes just staring off into space. But I know she is always listening.

                  When I let the conversation drift away, I turn my head to look at her. Her eyes are closed, and I take a few moments to just… take her in. I consider, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, what it would be like to wake up to that face for the rest of my life. To see those eyelids flutter open and her head turn towards me, to hear her sleepily mumble, “Morning.”

                  Her eyelids do flutter open, and her head does turn toward me. “I love you.”

                  “And I love you.” I sigh. “Please, don’t ever forget that.”

                  She takes her hand out of mine, brings it up to stroke my cheek. “I never forget.”

                  I roll onto my side and look her straight on. “It’s been ten years, Catherine. Do you think we’ll ever move on?”

                  In response, she kisses me. She rolls over to face me and I have no doubt that she’s doing everything to keep from complaining about how I’m scratching up her face. But there’s no room for any of that right now and we both know it. I feel her hair, because God knows when I’ll have the opportunity again. I pull her close against me and savor every second that she’s this close, this tangible, this _real_.

                  For stretches of time, one of us pulls apart and we just take in the feel of each other’s arms, wrapped so tightly and protectively. We look at each other. We talk and whisper words into each other’s ears because we can. And we kiss some more.

                  A little before dawn, we stand to leave. She picks up the blanket and folds it for me with a small smile, and together we pad across the field. The dew has soaked my feet by the time we’re on dry pavement but I don’t care.

                  I lean on the door of her car, looking down at her. “Morning, Catherine.”

                  She pulls me down and kisses me again. “See you.”

                  Yes. Although who knows when. We don’t say that, though.

                  I watch her pull away before going to my own car.

                  Almost before I even pull onto the street, my phone is ringing.

                  “Hey, you.”

                  “David?” I make a vague sound of acknowledgement. “We’re never going to move on, are we?”

                  Maybe. Of course it is always a possibility. A minute one, but I _could_ tell her that it could happen. But I don’t. “No, Catherine, I don’t think so.”

                  For almost our entire drives, we sit on the phone together, mostly just listening to each other’s breathing. I get home first.

                  “Catherine? I’m home.”

                  “I love you, David.”

                  After hanging up, I sit in my parked car for a few minutes, just staring at nothing. Finally, I go inside. I’m not even really aware of myself as I walk from the garage to my bedroom, lie down next to my wife and drift off to sleep.


End file.
